The wrong answer could have meant years of underpayments across 96 locations
An Avis Car Rentals subsidiary just settled a question that had been hanging over hundreds of its workers for years: which award actually covers the people who wash, inspect and check in rental cars?
The Federal Court answered on November 3 in W T H Pty Ltd v Fair Work Ombudsman [2026] FCA 1650. The car washers and vehicle check-in staff belong under the Vehicle Award - not the General Retail Industry Award, as the Fair Work Ombudsman had argued.
The distinction was not academic. As the court noted, if the ombudsman was right, those workers may have been underpaid.
The company at the centre of the dispute
W T H Pty Ltd trades as Avis Car Rentals and is part of Avis Budget Group. It runs 96 corporate rental locations across Australia, employing roughly 1,125 people at those sites. The biggest groups are Vehicle Service Agents (about 320), Rental Sales Agents (302), Rental Operations Agents (88) and Rovers (55).
The fight was about the VSAs and Rovers - roughly 375 workers.
What those workers actually do
VSAs work mainly in the wash bays. They clean vehicle interiors and exteriors, check for lost property, inspect returning cars for damage, monitor fuel levels, tyre pressure and tread depth, and drive vehicles between work areas. No trade qualifications are required - just a driver's licence and a one-to-two-week buddy period.
Rovers work the car parks at front-of-house locations. They check in returned vehicles on handheld devices, record kilometres and fuel levels, close out rentals, walk around each car looking for damage, snap photos, and greet customers as they pull in. Same qualification bar: a licence and a short buddy period.
Neither role involves heavy mechanical work. But both involve something the court found critical - triaging vehicles to work out whether servicing or repair is needed.
Two competing views
Avis argued its VSAs and Rovers fell under the Vehicle Manufacturing, Repair, Services and Retail Award 2010 (and its 2020 successor). The key clause covers employers in the motor vehicle rental business, but only the part of the operation "principally connected or concerned with" the repair and servicing of motor vehicles.
The Fair Work Ombudsman took the opposite view. Avis is a car rental business. Hiring out vehicles is the main game. Whatever cleaning and checking happens at the rental outlets, the ombudsman argued, is incidental to that core business - not a standalone vehicle servicing operation. The ombudsman pointed to job descriptions, reporting lines and even a customer service award received by one worker to argue these roles were integrated within the rental business, not a separate servicing arm.
The ombudsman accepted that Avis' dedicated repair workshops - staffed by 22 trade-qualified mechanics at separate locations - fell under the Vehicle Award. But the wash bays and car parks, the ombudsman said, were different.
There were also classification arguments. The ombudsman said Rovers in particular fit neatly under Retail Employee Level 1 in the General Retail Industry Award.
Where the court landed
The Federal Court sided with Avis.
Yes, the principal concern of Avis' rental locations is hiring out vehicles. Nobody disputed that. But the Vehicle Award was drafted to capture exactly this scenario - the slice of a car rental business that handles repair and servicing.
The court found that VSAs and Rovers perform work "principally connected or concerned with" the repair and servicing of motor vehicles. Their triaging role - inspecting, checking and flagging vehicles that need further attention - was "necessarily ancillary to, but a vital part of" Avis' repair and servicing function.
The court also took a broad view of "servicing." In ordinary usage, the word means "a regular inspection and maintenance of a vehicle or other machine." Pumping up tyres, topping up oil, refilling windscreen washer fluid - tasks performed by VSAs - all fit.
On classifications, the court found the Vehicle Award's categories were a better match. VSAs sit under "Car cleaner/washer" at Level 1. Rovers fit "Car cleaner/washer," "Detailer - other" and "Driveway attendant." Both are a tighter fit than Retail Employee Level 1.
The declarations were made from January 1, 2010 (when the 2010 Vehicle Award commenced) through to the present under the 2020 successor.
What it means for HR teams
For HR professionals managing award-covered workforces, the case is a practical reminder that coverage turns on the nature of the work and the part of the business where it happens - not the employer's headline industry. Workers who clean and inspect vehicles at a car rental company are not necessarily retail workers, even if the business earns most of its revenue from renting cars.
The broader takeaway: where employees perform tasks tied to repair and servicing - triaging, inspecting, checking fluid levels, identifying damage - that work may fall under an industry-specific award, even when the workers hold no trade qualifications and the employer's core business sits elsewhere.
Getting award classification wrong carries real underpayment risk, as this case made plain.
